5
Step III: Write Your Draft

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Convert your outline to a first draft efficiently and effectively.

• Write individual sections of documents in no more than 15 to 30 minutes.

• Write well-constructed paragraphs.

• Write more easily by writing-as-you-speak in the first draft.

Imagine yourself writing in comfortable clothes, not in a top hat and tails or in an evening gown.

OLD ATTITUDES

Writing is hard work. It’s difficult knowing where to begin, how to proceed, and when to stop fussing over a document.

Writing is also scary because readers can be critical of everything: the message, the words the writer uses, and the errors the writer makes.

Furthermore, writing is a burden. It gets in the way of doing “real work.”

NEW ATTITUDES

Writing becomes easier when writers follow the four steps in the BWP. Writers know where to begin and how to proceed. Furthermore, they’ve learned not to fuss over their drafts when writing; they’ve learned to separate writing from revising.

Writing is no longer scary because writers who master the four-step BWP gain control over their message and word choice. They also learn how to detect and correct errors.

Writing is no longer a burden, because the four-step BWP allows writers to divide the writing process into steps so that they can fit writing into their daily schedules—between other tasks.

INCREASE YOUR WRITING EFFICIENCY

You can increase your efficiency in writing by using the following techniques and tools:

• Writing your draft section-by-section.

• Writing as you speak.

• Adapting boilerplate to your use.

• Taking advantage of a word processing program.

• Writing without revising.

Write Your Draft Section-by-Section

Working from an outline gives you several advantages in writing a draft. First, it allows you to write your draft section-by-section, in short intervals of no more than 15 to 30 minutes per section. Thus, you don’t need to block out several hours or whole days to write an entire draft from beginning to end. When you write one section at a time, you can wedge your writing in between other tasks, including phone calls and meetings. Writing section-by-section thus allows you to work on your document while performing other tasks during the day and lessens the feeling that writing is a burden.

Second, because your outline provides you with a view of the entire document, it frees you to draft sections in any order without getting lost. You don’t have to begin writing your draft at the beginning. You can jump in anywhere, write sections in whatever order is easiest for you, and then sequence the sections in the order you put them in your outline.

Third, your outline’s headings, topic sentences, and points will keep you focused as you write paragraphs. Therefore, begin drafting a section by writing down the section heading. (When you revise your draft—the fourth and final step in the BWP—you’ll decide whether you want to keep the headings, turn them into headlines, or delete them altogether.) Next, transfer to your draft the topic sentence you created for each section. Remember to begin each paragraph with a topic sentence. Finally, flesh out each paragraph, incorporating the relevant points from your outline. Turn your points into complete sentences unless keeping them in a list form makes more sense. (See Chapter 7 for a more detailed discussion about “Lists.”)

Write Short Paragraphs

Begin a new paragraph every time you end one idea and begin another. Keep your paragraphs short, as newspaper writers do. Short paragraphs are easier to write than long ones and are more appealing to readers.

Let’s take a look at the construction of the following paragraph.

Mount Morris Associates (MMA) has tasked its training group with educating its 3,000 employees. The training group, called the Employee Development Team (EDT), teaches a variety of courses to executives, managers, supervisors, professional personnel, and clerical staff. EDT teaches courses to internal audiences both on- and off-site. Recently, EDT has offered courses to a select group of external audiences. External audiences have responded favorably to EDT’s courses, and EDT plans to widen its scope of offerings. Although, historically, EDT has been part of MMA’s Personnel Division, discussion now focuses on its becoming part of the Corporate Division. By becoming part of the Corporate Division, EDT could more easily extend its courses to all entities within MMA.

The paragraph is unified in that all the points refer to the topic sentence—the training group tasked with educating MMA’s employees. However, the paragraph is like a shopping bag, stuffed with different ideas. By separating the main ideas and creating three separate paragraphs, we can highlight those ideas and make them easier for readers to identify and absorb. Notice that I’ve added headings to help me.

Mount Morris Associates’ Training Group: EDT
Mount Morris Associates (MMA) has tasked its training group with educating its 3,000 employees. The training group, called the Employee Development Team (EDT), teaches a variety of courses to executives, managers, supervisors, professional personnel, and clerical staff. EDT teaches courses to internal audiences both on- and off-site.

EDT’s Plans
Recently, EDT has offered courses to a select group of external audiences. External audiences have responded favorably to EDT’s courses, and EDT plans to widen its scope of offerings.

Reorganization Under Discussion
Although, historically, EDT has been part of MMA’s Personnel Division, discussion now focuses on its becoming part of the Corporate Division. By becoming part of the Corporate Division, EDT could more easily extend its courses to all entities within MMA.

Write as You Speak

Even when following an outline, writers can tighten up in writing the first draft. This tightening or blocking usually comes from self-consciousness about sounding sufficiently professional. Self-conscious writers tend to labor over every sentence, before moving on to the next one. This self-consciousness not only slows down the writing process, but often results in stilted, unnecessarily formal prose.

If you want to write your first draft quickly, write as you would speak to someone and worry about sentence structure and word choice later, when you revise.

Some executives and professional writers who have adopted this strategy actually dictate their documents. They find they can talk faster than they can type. So, to save time, they dictate their drafts, record the dictation, and give the tape to a secretary to transcribe. They then revise the draft once they have the printed text in front of them.

Dictation, however, has its drawbacks. Transcribing the tape is, in itself, a time-consuming process. Also, people who dictate tend to stray from their outlines, become repetitive and wordy, and neglect to include instructions regarding headings and paragraph breaks. As a result, they end up spending more time revising.

Still, the basic idea of writing as you speak is useful in gaining speed and overcoming self-consciousness in your first draft. Adopting the “write as you speak” approach helps you let go of the idea that the first draft should be perfect and avoid the painstaking efforts that this old attitude imposes.

When you write as you speak, you may violate some of the guidelines we discuss later in this course. For example, you may pad your sentences with unnecessary words or use the passive voice when you could have used the active voice. Don’t be concerned about making such “mistakes” in your first draft. You can correct them when you revise or edit. Remember that the BWP entails separating writing from revising.

Use Strong Verbs

When you write your first draft, think in terms of “action.” Invigorate your ideas with a sense of movement, power, activity, and performance. Use strong, active verbs like express, encourage, calculate, conclude, discuss, need, pro-pose, relate, suggest, and summarize.

Writing as you speak will help you use verbs rather than nouns. For example, if you write as you speak, you’re more likely to write, “We need...” and to use “need” as a verb, than to write, “We are in need of...” and to use “need” as a noun flanked by prepositions such as “in” and “of.” Don’t worry, however, if in writing as you speak, you still lapse into using nouns rather than verbs. You’ll have a chance to turn your nouns into verbs when you revise.

Adapt Boilerplate to Suit Your Needs

You don’t always have to start from scratch when you write. In fact, many writers incorporate boilerplate in their drafts. Boilerplate is a term used for text that writers use over and over again because the information remains constant. Writers often lift such information from other documents and insert it in their own, with few, if any changes.

Typical types of boilerplate include companies’ mission statements and histories; traveling directions; descriptions of facilities, equipment, and products; job descriptions; procedures; and price lists.

While copying the words someone else wrote without acknowledging the author is usually considered plagiarizing—a form of cheating—using boilerplate is not. No one person owns boilerplate, so ownership attribution is not an issue. Companies consider such information as belonging to everyone within the company. In fact, many companies file boilerplate information and make it easily available to employees and, on request, to customers.

The one problem with using boilerplate is that the style in which it is written is often dry and impersonal. So, you may have to revise what you borrow.

Take Advantage of a Word Processing Program

Use a word processing program when you write. These computer software programs have revolutionized the, writing process. They allow writers to store text on diskettes, and to retrieve and change text easily. As a result, writers no longer need fear making “mistakes,” and having to retype entire documents. Writers who use a word processing program can insert, delete, or move text, as well as fix “mistakes” quickly—merely by pressing certain command keys on a computer’s keyboard.

Word processing programs also allow users to format their documents: to change margin widths and tab settings, create columns, change spacing between sentences and paragraphs, and change font (letter) sizes and styles—all with great ease. By using a word processing program and a high-quality printer, writers can create attractive hardcopy text that resembles typeset text.

Among the best-known word processing programs are WordPerfect^™, Microsoft Word^™, WordStar^™, Ami Pro^™, Professional Write^™, and MacWrite^™.

If you do not have access to a computer with word processing software, consider writing a proposal to your manager requesting such access and outlining the benefits.

Write Without Revising

As you write, focus on doing just that—writing. Don’t worry about polishing your sentences or choosing the “right” word. Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation either. Fussing over your draft will slow you down and may cause you to lose your train of thought.

Think of writing a first draft as being similar to putting down a base coat of paint. In revising, you’ll go over that first coat and touch up any mistakes.

I know it’s hard not to revise as you write. It’s natural to want to correct errors as quickly as possible. But you’ll find that if you resist the temptation to edit as you write, you will write much more quickly, and your prose will flow more smoothly.

 

In Chapter 5, we discussed Step III of the BWP: writing the draft. In this chapter, we reviewed writing techniques guaranteed to save you time in writing first drafts. You will write more efficiently when you follow your outline, write section-by-section using your headings and topic sentences, write short paragraphs, write as you speak, adapt boilerplate, and use a word processing program. Remember to write without revising.

Answers to “Think About It...” Questions from This Chapter

1. Using headings, I divided the paragraph as follows:

Training Manual Bindings
Training manuals may be bound in a variety of ways: perfect bind, Surlocks, and saddle stitch.

Perfect Bind
In perfect bind, all the pages are glued along the gutter of each page. All pages are then pressed together. A cover with a spine is then glued to the spine of the pages that have been pressed together. Most books sold in stores are perfect bound. Of the three kinds of binding, the perfect bind is the most expensive.

Surlocks Bind
In the Surlocks bind, spiral pieces of plastic are wound through holes punched in the pages of the book. This bind allows manuals to lie flat when opened. However, the Surlocks bind is not permanent; users may remove the plastic pieces. This bind is moderately expensive.

Saddle Stitch
In the saddle stitch bind, staples keep pages together. Like the perfect bind, the saddle stitch bind does not allow manuals to lie flat when opened. The saddle stitch bind is the least expensive of the three binds.

2. For my “write as you speak” paragraph for Sample Document I, I took the section on “Benefits of Serving on Steering Committee” and it came out like this.

Your serving on the committee will benefit your company in several ways. (Notice that I’ve kept my topic sentence from my outline, here.) Your company will be able to use the writing course once we’ve developed it. You’ll save your company the time and money it would have to spend to develop such a course on its own. And you’ll save your company money on what it costs to bring in outside consultants. We figured out that our course will cost one-third to a half of what it costs to bring in an outside consultant to teach a one-day course. But you know what? You’ll not only save your company time and money, you’ll also provide them with a better course than outside consultants can. Why? Because you and the other folks on the committee will have defined the course’s objectives and guided its development.

3. Following my outline and using the “write as you speak” technique, I came up with this draft of my Sample Document I. Notice how little I had to do because my outline (see Chapter 4) was so detailed. Also notice that in certain sections, such as that on the Steering Committee’s “Responsibilities for Developing the Course,” I didn’t turn the six points into a paragraph, but kept them in a list form. I think they are easier to read as a list. In contrast, I did turn the points about ACME’S responsibilities into a paragraph, because these points are short and are easy to scan in paragraph form. Notice, too, that I kept my topic sentences from my outline; I didn’t rewrite them. I’ll revise them, if necessary, later.

August 3,1992

Ms. Dana Johnson
Delta Corporation
5 Stacey Avenue,
Fort Worth, Texas 76132

Dear Dana: (I know Dana, so I’m going to use her first name; if I didn’t know her, I’d begin “Dear Ms. Johnson:”)

Purpose of Letter
I am inviting you to join the Steering Committee that Acme Corporation is creating to oversee the development of a business writing course.

Steering Committee Members
We are proposing a Steering Committee composed of the ten training managers in the top high-tech companies in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I’ve attached a list of the people we’re inviting so you can see who they are.

Purpose of Course
The course will be designed to help employees improve written communications in our respective companies.

Responsibilities for Developing the Course
The Steering Committee and ACME Corporation will share the responsibilities for developing this course.

Steering Committee
The Steering Committee will oversee the development of the course. It will:

• set the course objectives

• review the course outline

• review the first draft

• review comments from participants in the pilot workshop and achieve consensus on what needs to be changed

• approve the revised draft

• review the workbook design and layout

ACME Corporation
We will undertake the actual work and cover the costs. We’ll do the course writing, piloting, revising, designing, and printing, as well as pay for these expenses.

Benefits of Serving on the Committee
Your serving on the committee will benefit your company in several ways. Your company will be able to use the writing course once we’ve developed it. You’ll save your company the time and money it would have to spend to develop such a course on its own. And you’ll save your company money on what it costs to bring in outside consultants. We figured out that our course will cost one-third to a half of what it costs to bring in an outside consultant to teach a one-day course. But you know what? You’ll not only save your company time and money, you’ll also provide them with a better course than outside consultants can. Why? Because you and the other folks on the committee will have defined the course’s objectives and guided its development.

Cost of Purchasing the Course
The cost will vary depending on whether you use ACME’S instructors or your own. If you use your own (and we’ll be happy to train them), the cost will be $30 per participant for the materials. If you use our instructors, the cost will be $50 per participant for the materials plus the instructor. The $50 per participant fee is based on the assumption that there will be at least 20 participants in a course.

Steering Committee Schedule
The proposed schedule includes a first meeting on October 15, from 8:30 to 12:00 noon at ACME, provided seven of the ten members can make that date and time. We’re proposing six meetings in total, with the other meeting times to be determined, along with the production schedule.

Reply Requested
Please let me know by September 2 if you would like to join the committee. I hope you’ll say “yes,” because you’d be a great addition to the team.

Sincerely,

Joe Mancuso
Training Manager